
Class \ 



____ 



Book _ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



By the Same Author 



Songs from the Silent Land (Out of print) 

The Soul's Progress, and Other Poems 

Yzdra (Poetic Drama) 



The 
Shadow of /Etna 



By 

Louis V. Ledoux 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York and London 

Gbe Knickerbocker press 

1914 



111* 



Copyright, 19 14 

BY 

LOUIS V. LEDOUX 

All rights reserved, including the rights of production and adapta- 
tion. For permission to perform Persephone : A Masque, application 
must be made to the author. 



APR -4 1914 



Ubc Tftnicfterbocfeer press, t*ew HJorft 



A 



) CI.A371219 
X-0/ 



30 
J. L. L. 



Thanks are due the Editors of The Bookman, 
Century, Forum, Harper's Monthly, Poetry Jour- 
nal, Scribner's, and The Yale Review for per- 
mission to reprint poems in this volume. 



Contents 



Persephone: A Masque 

Serenade .... 

Crossroads .... 

Letters from Egypt 

Semper Resurgens 

The Meeting . . 

The Gift .... 

The Alien .... 

Slumber Song 

"Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt' 

At Sunset .... 

The Falcon 

Resurrection 

The End . . . 

The Unknown Brothers 



i 

3i 

32 
33 
35 
37 
38 
39 
4i 
43 
44 
45 
49 
5i 
53 





PAGE 


Fulfilment . 


• • • -59 


Okada Mitsu 


. 61 


Cui Bono? . 


• 63 


The Only Way 


• 65 


Dirge .... 


• 73 


Felicitas . 


• 74 


Sicilian Song 


• 77 



A Threnody: In Memory of the De- 
struction of Messina by Earthquake 79 



Vlll 



Persephone 

A Masque 



Scene 

A cliff rising abruptly from the northern 
shore of Lake Pergusa in Sicily. A few 
scattered boulders below. From the top of the 
cliff slopes upward the field of Enna. It is 
early spring and there are innumerable violets 
which give a bluish tinge to the hillside. Here 
and there are other flowers; crocus, hyacinth, 
poppy, flag, roses, and narcissus. In the 
distance on the east rises Mtna. 

On the top of the cliff are seated Cyane, 
Arethusa, and Galatea. Persephone 
stands a little behind them on the lower slope of 
the field, looking out across the lake. It is 
early morning. 



Persephone 

A Masque 

Persephone 

Up from Egypt and the Southland, 
See! The wild, white cranes are flying. 

Cyane 

In the air I hear their crying. 

Arethusa 

Hark! Again. And now more loud. 

Galatea 

Dark against the sky they show. 

Cyane 

Where? 



Galatea 

To southward, like a cloud 
Hung between the sky and ocean. 
Swift and steady is their motion. 

Arethusa 

More like arrows from a bow. 

Cyane 

Now I see them coming nearer. 

Are they stooping toward the shore? 

Persephone 

O wild, white cranes, come down to me ! 

Arethusa 

Now their cries are ringing clearer. 
See ! A downward course they take. 

Galatea 
There against the sun are more. 

6 



Cyane (to Persephone) 

Now so low the first are flying, 
I can see their shadow lying 
Dark and wedge-like on the lake. 

Arethusa (to Persephone) 

They have settled just below. 

Persephone (singing) 

Heart of a bird ! Heart of a bird ! 

O the wild, white cranes are free; 
But the heart of man is the song unheard 

That the sea-winds sing to the sea. 

Heart of a bird ! Heart of a bird ! 

O wild, white cranes that fly 
Over all the lands that the oceans gird, 

What have you more than I? 

What have you more than I have had 
From the winds and the sun and the sea? 

Is the heart of a bird like a man's heart sad 
And crying ceaselessly? 



Galatea 

Did Hecate see you as you slept last night, 
And weave the yellow moonbeams round your 

heart, 
Or Aphrodite from her Eastern isle 
Send out some scarlet-vestured dream that 

leaves 
This cry of human longing on your lips? 

Persephone 

I know not why it is my clouded mind 
The gold of such a sunrise turns to gray. 
The song, I heard a fisher-maiden sing 
One bird- thrilled dawn, when here alone I sat, 
And back of ^Etna shone the coming rose. 
Beneath me spread a sea of moving mist 
Whose silver bosom softly rose and fell 
In rhythmic undulation of slow waves 
That soundless broke upon the cliff below. 
There white it lay and palely luminous, 
A sea that had no cadenced undertone ; 



And as I watched its gleaming billows roll, 
And thought how all beneath was gray and 

chill, 
My heart was troubled by a song that rose 
From where the shrouded lake in darkness 

lay: 
The fisher-maiden sang, and I went down; 
But when I asked, she knew not what it 

meant, 
Or could not put in words the thing she knew; 
And I came back, but ^Etna's rose was gone. 

Galatea 

A tale I heard that men are cursed with souls ; 
But what souls are I know not. 

Arethusa 

I have heard 
The soul is hunger ever unappeased, 
And thirst by all earth's fountains un- 
assuaged. 



Persephone 

The soul is darkness waiting for the dawn, 
And, if dawn comes, is day that longs for 

dusk; 
And not to men as to the soulless beasts 
Is death a sudden stranger. 

Cyane 

Close beside, 
With following footfalls through the crisped 

leaves 
That edge their pathway rustling, death 

unseen, 
A dread companion, waits his destined 

hour; 
And now upon a turning shoulder breathes, 
And now, an obscure shadow, dims the 

day. 

Galatea 

The cranes rise up again. 

10 



Persephone 

Spring's harbingers. 

Now where they pass will green come steal- 
ing up 

Expectant valleys where the brown brooks 
run, 

And dot with scattered tufts the meadow- 
lands. 

Arethusa 
They fly the Pygmies' war. 
Cyane 

It is the hour 
When we are wont to sing our hymn to 

her 
Who leads despondent Summer from the 

South 

To beauty's bright renewal — blade and 

bud. 

ii 



Galatea and Arethusa 

Weave we now the sacred dances ; 

Praise we now Demeter's name; 
Bright the dew-starred cobweb glances, 

On the altar leaps the flame. 

Cyane and Persephone 

In the mystic measure swaying, 

Great Demeter we entreat : 
Mother hear thy children praying ! 

Bring the barley, bring the wheat. 



12 



All {Hymn to Demeter) 

Weave the dance, and raise again the sacred 
chorus ; 
Wreathe the garlands of the spring about 
the hair; 
Now once more the meadows burst in bloom 
before us, 
Crying swallows dart and glitter through 
the air. 
Glints the plowshare in the brown and fra- 
grant furrow ; 
Pigeons coo in shady coverts as they 
pair; 
Come the furtive mountain folk from cave 
and burrow, 
Lean, and blinking at the sunlight's 
sudden glare. 



13 



Bright through midmost heaven moves the 
lesser Lion; 
Hide the Hyades in ocean caverns hoar; 
Past the shoulders of the sunset flames 
Orion, 
Following the Sisters seaward evermore. 
Gleams the east at evening, lit by low Arc- 
turus; 
Out to subtle-scented dawns beside the 
shore, 
Yet a little and the Pleiades will lure us : 
Weave the dance and raise the chorus as of 
yore. 



14 



Far to eastward up the fabled gulf of Issus, 
Northward, southward, westward, now the 
trader goes, 
Passing headlands clustered yellow with 
narcissus, 
Bright with hyacinth, with poppy, and with 
rose. 
Shines the sea and falls the billow as un- 
daunted, 
Past the rising of the stars that no man 
knows, 
Sails he onward through the islands siren- 
haunted, 
Till the clashing gates of rock before him 
close. 



15 



Kindly Mother of the beasts and birds and 
flowers, 
Gracious bringer of the barley and the 
grain, 
Earth awakened feels thy sunlight and thy 
showers ; 
Great Demeter! Let us call thee not in 
vain. 
Lead us safely from the seed-time to the 
threshing, 
Past the harvest and the vineyard's purple 
stain ; 
Let us see thy corn-pale hair the sunlight 
meshing, 
When the sounding flails of autumn swing 
again. 



16 



Galatea 
Where is thy mother now, Persephone? 
Persephone 

I felt her stoop to kiss me as I slept, 

And looking, saw the East's primeval calm. 

Cyane 

Before the dawn had showed its first gray 

gleam, 
Ere yet the earliest bird some snatch of 

song 
Or half -forgotten cadence heard in sleep, 
Had warbled waking, she had yoked her 

car 
And fared far out across the starlit foam 
Whose silver blossoms close not with the 

night, 

Bearing the earth-brown mortals gifts of 

spring. 

17 



Persephone 

She gives her golden store to all the lands 
That Ocean laps within his slumbrous folds, 
And strange it is to think that far from here 
The darker folk of Nilus and the South, 
Yea, all that dwell beyond the ocean haze, 
Look up from toil to give Demeter thanks, 
While on them, down the almond-vistaed 

spring 
Steal recollections faint of what they were 
Before the soul had sapped their strength away 
And set them groping darkly through the 

earth 
For things that are not, and can never be. 

Cyane 

Their ashen hearts remembrance kindles now, 
And long-forgotten moods and motions bud 
In barren breasts to burst in rose and gold, 
Petal by petal opened, making dim 
The dun, habitual aspects of the world. 

18 



Arethusa 

Apollo mounts, and still we loiter here, 
Leaving Demeter's altar unadorned. 
The flowers will lose their early loveliness 
If long they gaze on him, and soon his 

beams v 

Will drink the freshness from each veined 

cup, 
For dewdrops, like to swans, just ere they 

pass 
Attain their height of beauty, 

Galatea 

Now they gleam 
Most like the foam-stars on the veil of light 
That wrapped the Paphian when at first she 

shone 
Within her curved shell, and round about, 
Amazed Ocean trembled, shimmering. 

{They move about gathering the flowers.) 
19 



Cyane 

What wealth of violets! About me here 
They cluster thick as on the broidered 

veils 
The sailors gain in barter over seas. 
I know not which to pick, the blue or pied. 
The sturdy yellow or these dainty white. 

Arethusa 

I pick the crocus, Smilax' gentle friend, 

For Crocus died of unrequited love, 

So legends tell, and when beside my heart 

I lay his tender blossom, oft I think 

If one loved me so well he should not die. 

Galatea 

If one loved me, I'd play him many pranks 
And tease him till his love he did deny — 
But love the more — and from the waves I'd 

laugh 
To see him pace the shore disconsolate. 

20 



Arethusa 

I know not what it is that I would do: 
I could not choose but pity, yet would fear 
To loose my maiden zone and so to lose 
This rippling girlhood. 

Galatea 

You would run or hide, 
With tears and laughter mingled, babbling 
still. 

Cyane 

I would not wish for Aphrodite's flame, 
Or change the love I know for love unknown ; 
This cool, sweet converse on the morning hills, 
The linked roamings with Persephone 
Suffice my need of loving, nor would I, 
For other love, one petal pluck from this. 

Persephone 

I wonder will the seeds of Fate unfold 
For good or ill. So happy are we now. 

21 



(Cyane, one arm laden with flowers, goes over, 

puts her other arm about Persephone, 

and kisses her.) 

Cyane 

Surely we shall be ever as we are. 

Persephone 

Ah no ! Not Zeus himself can hold the spring, 
For in the bud is autumn's withered leaf. 

{She moves slowly up the hillside, away from 

the others, gathering flowers 

as she goes.) 

Galatea 

The ever mournful hyacinth I pluck, 
Yet not because its petals tell of pain, 
But for the head with tightly clustered curls, 
The noble discus player in his strength, 
Whose stalwart beautjr wrought his over- 
throw. 

22 



Cyane {after a pause) 

Go not too far up field, Persephone, 
Demeter bade us watch you, lest you 

stray 
And some swift harm befall. 

Persephone 

Fear not for me; 
I gather rose and lily, poppies too, 
And there ahead the bright narcissus 

shines. 
No danger lurks within this field of 

flowers, 
The gliding emerald snakes I oft have 

touched, 
And naught else is there save the sky and 

you, 
The lake, and far-off ^Etna crowned with 

snow. 



23 



Arethusa {singing) 

High on her mountain throne, 
Ever aloof, alone, 
(Clouds are her maiden zone) 
^Etna the white doth sit, 
Hearing the Titans groan 
Chained in their sunless pit, 
Whence to the earth are blown, 
Thwarting Demeter's plan, 
Flames by Hephaestus lit. 

White on her mountain throne, 
Ever aloof, alone, 
(Clouds are her maiden zone) 
Silent doth ^Etna sit, 
Watching the doubtful strife 
Waged since the world began : 
Parched are the springs of life, 
Earth with the seed is rife; 
Poised are the fates of man. 



24 



(Persephone has gone far up the field and is 
now on the shoulder of the hill about to pass 
out of sight.) 

Cyane {calling) 

Persephone ! 

Persephone 

Just here below I see 
Narcissus with a hundred golden flowers, 
A wondrous bloom. 

Cyane 

A moment, and I come. 

(Persephone disappears over the edge of 
the hill.) 

Arethusa (after a pause) 

A sudden darkness falls! 

25 



Galatea 

A strange green light 
As sometimes at the sunset wraps the sea 
When heavy storm-clouds hang within the 
west. 

Arethusa 

I hear a distant rumbling as of thunder, 
And look, the flowers are trembling on their 
stalks! 

Galatea 

Now comes it nearer! 

Arethusa 

Help! I cannot stand. 
The earth heaves up and sways beneath my 
feet. 

(A loud roaring and rending sound is heard; 

the ground trembles as in an earthquake, and 

the darkness grows swiftly deeper. Arethusa 

and Galatea fall prone.) 

26 



Cyane (on the edge of the hill) 

Where art thou? Quick! The great earth 

heaves and rends; 
I hear a trampling as of thunder steeds, 
And see a blackness shot with moving 

flames ; 
But where thou art, I see not. Quick! To 

me! 
Persephone! 

Voice of Aides 

Nay, to me! 

Persephone 

Ai! Ai! 

Cyane 

God! Aides! Spare her! 

27 



{On the edge of the hill is seen for a moment, 
obscurely through the darkness, a golden chariot 
drawn by wild black horses; the wheels are like 
revolving yellow flames. In the car stands 
Aides, black bearded and dressed all in black 
with a golden crown. He has one arm about 
Persephone, crushing her flowers against him, 
and with the other he guides the plunging 
horses. Cyane flings herself at the head of the 
nearer horse, trying to clutch his mane and 
nostrils, but misses her hold and falls beneath 
the car. There is another loud roar as of 
thunder.) 



2% 



Miscellaneous Poems 



29 



Serenade 

(~)UT of the dusky midnight, 
Over the silver dew, 
A spirit came 
With a heart of flame, 
Singing of you, of you. 

Dawn rose over the mountains, 
Gold on the farthest height ; 
And the robins sang 
Till the wildwood rang 
Only of Love's delight. 

Midnight and dawn and sunset, 

Rose of the East and West, 

Again I wait 

At your garden-gate, 

And the thorn is in my breast. 
31 



Crossroads 

(The Woman Speaks) 

IT may be we adventurers 

Together may not venture far; 
For you the solitary North, 
For me my star; 

For you, till twilight brings you home, 
The glow of youth, the forest track; 

For me the love that will not yield 
And call you back. 



32 



Letters from Egypt 

A/f EMPHIS and Karnak, Luxor, Thebes, 

the Nile: 
Of these your letters told; and I who read, 
Saw loom on dim horizons, Egypt's dead 
In march across the desert, mile on mile, 
A ghostly caravan in slow defile 
Between the sand and stars; and at their head 
From unmapped darkness into darkness fled 
The gods that Egypt feared a little while. 
3 33 



There black against the night I saw them loom, 
With captive kings and armies in array 
Remembered only by their sculptured doom; 
And thought : What Egypt was are we to-day. 
Then rose obscure against the rearward gloom 
The march of empires yet to pass away. 



34 



Semper Resurgens 

^VTOT only over Delos' steep, 

From green Dodona and the cliffs 
Where Lesbian maidens came to weep 
The unreturning fisher-skiffs; 

And not alone from poets' pages, 
Across our unexpecting skies — 

A meteor from the golden ages — 
Does Beauty flash upon our eyes. 

No paladin or paramour 

In Joyeuse Garde or Celedon, 

Not Roncesval nor Agincourt, 
Nor Islam crushed at Ascalon ; 

35 



Nor yet the wintry world returning 
From barren questing of the Grail, 

To find the rose of passion burning, 
And spring reborn in Arno's vale, 

Has bound Romance in golden bands 
So closely set that now her light 

Can shine alone from storied lands 
And fields of famed, chivalric fight. 

Whene'er the magic word is spoken, 
When moonlit ripples move the mere, 

Anew she comes, her bondage broken; 
And still anew the vision clear 

Of Beauty gleams on souls that, seeing, 
Forget how darkly day by day, 

We whirl within the wheels of being, 
Or plod the mill-round's dusty way. 



36 



The Meeting 

'"VTOU must not look at me so;" 

And her eyes were filled with tears. 
'Beauty is gone, I know, 

And youth with the vanished years. " 

But I saw only the girl; 

And all that had come between 
Whirled off as the dead leaves whirl 

When April's face is seen; 

For the dream I dreamt of old 
Had kept her youth secure — 

The eyes, and the hair of gold — 
And dreams unchanged endure. 



37 



The Gift 

T ET others give you wealth and love, 

And guard you while you live; 
I cannot set my gift above 
The gifts that others give; 

And yet the gift I give is good : 

In one man's eyes to see 
The worship of your maidenhood, 

While children climb your knee. 



38 



The Alien 

>T*HROUGH aisles of verdure glow the 
cardinal flowers, 

Like rubies set in carven screens of jade; 

In forest twilight sleep the ferns un- 
swayed, 

And silent as in Ocean's windless bowers, 

Move softly on the slow and timeless 
hours 

Through gradual changes lulled in cool, green 
shade : 

It is as though some wise enchantment 
laid 

The spell of calm on earth's unresting 
powers. 

39 



And I amid this peace and silence stand 
Like one that fell returned to Paradise, 
Who craves the calm of that remembered 

land, 
But looks thereon with strange, regretful 

eyes; 
And knows himself an exile, trebly banned, 
An alien under once familiar skies. 



40 



Slumber Song 

FJROWSILY come the sheep 

From the place where the pastures be, 
By a dusty lane 
To the fold again, 
First one, and then two, and three: 

First one, then two, by the paths of sleep 
Drowsily come the sheep. 

Drowsily come the sheep, 

And the shepherd is singing low : 

After eight comes nine 

In the endless line, 

They come, and then in they go. 

First eight, then nine, by the paths of sleep 

Drowsily come the sheep. 
41 



Drowsily come the sheep 
And they pass through the sheepfold door; 
After one comes two, 
After one comes two, 
Comes two, and then three and four. 

First one, then two, by the paths of sleep, 
Drowsily come the sheep. 



42 



" Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt 

T KNOW in twilight, as of old, 

The western hills are purple-blue; 
I know my arching casements hold 
Serene, familiar things in view — 

The crescent moon, the cedar trees, 
A star in sunset's fading red — 

But know not who hath joy of these 
Since I was numbered with the dead. 



43 



At Sunset 

f^LASP her and hold her and love her, 

Here in the arching green 
Of boughs that bend above her 
With belts of blue between. 

Clasp her and hold her and love her, 
Swift ! Ere the splendor dies ; 

The blue grows black above her, 
The earth in shadow lies. 

Flowers of dream enfold her. 

Soft ! Let me bend above, 
Clasp her and love her and hold her, 

Clasp her and hold and love. 



44 



The Falcon 

"He was hooded and leashed by that most 
bright lady, and his soul wore the golden brail 
of the world j and the fire died within him; but 
he went ever with a sad countenance like one 
who had lost what he most prized" 

A MERLIN rides on my Lady's wrist; 
With a fetter of silk his foot is wound 
And a broidered hood on his head is 
bound 
With a girdle of gold and amethyst. 

Proudly paces her palfrey there, 

For my Lady rides to the hunt to-day 

And cavaliers in a long array 

Follow the falcon and lady fair. 

45 



Under the arching boughs they ride, 

With gleam of damask and glint of sword, 
And the hoofs beat dull on the grassy- 
sward — 

But one spurs up to the lady's side: 

"'Tis sweet to gallop by glade and wold 
When April's alchemy has blent 
Of every vernal sound and scent 

A wine of magic manifold. 

"Yea, youth is sweet, and horse and friend, 
And every sense drinks in the morn, 
Yet well I would of all be shorn, 
So might I win the bliss to wend 

" As yonder falcon bound and blind, 

And make forevermore my stand 

The matchless lily of your hand, 

And feel your brail and jesses bind. " 
46 



And answers she: " Sweet words, Sir Knight, 
But noble wings were made to soar 
Up where the yellow sunbeams pour 

On glossy plumes their living light ; 

"And birds that climb to the circling sun, 
And starlike drop en their gleaming way, 
Are ill-content with a leash's play; 
But I wait, Sir Knight, till your speech be 
done." 

So ride they on while the sun grows hot, 
The shadows shorten, the south wind dies, 
But at never a quarry the falcon flies 

For the lady listens and heeds him not. 

Then gallop they back by bough and brere, 

The lady with mind and heart intent 

On the tale of courtly compliment 

And the voice that sings to her charmed ear, 

47 



Till they come at dusk to the gray-walled 
town, 

The sunset splendor on spur and blade; 

And lepers slink to a place of shade 
As the clanking drawbridge staggers down. 

The hall is lit and the lutes resound ; 

But the bird at his block on the castle lawn, 
With wings that droop and forget the dawn, 

Is a poet's soul that the world hath bound. 



48 



Resurrection 

"D ACK from the misty valleys 

And lowlands drifting gloom, 
Up through the laurelled alleys, 
Lured by the laurel's bloom; 

Up where the pines are clinging, 
Up to the mountain crest 

I come, and the soul is singing 
Waked in the songless breast. 

Close to the earth I press me, 
Stretched on the topmost peak ; 

Winds of the south caress me, 
The rock is warm to my cheek : 

4 49 



Stirred by earth's primal urges, 
Roused by the summer's breath, 

From death-cold dark resurges 
The dream that saves from death. 



50 



The End 

"Yl^ITHOUT the midnight forest moans 
and heaves ; 

I lay my head where oft her head has lain. 
Against my windows whirl the autumn leaves, 

And on the roof I hear the winter rain. 



51 



The Unknown Brothers 

After Reading the Greek Anthology 



53 



The Unknown Brothers 

CINGING band by song united 
When the blue ^Egean plains 
Girdled isles where lovers lighted 

Lamps in Kypris' seaward fanes; 
Singing Brothers, earth enfolden, 
What of you and of your olden 

Music now? What still remains? 

Scattered blooms, surviving only 

As the petal holds the rose, 
In the garden where the lonely 

Scarlet flower of Sappho blows; 
And of some no single token — 
Leaf or bud, or blossom broken — 

Now the mounded garden shows. 

55 



Was there lack of exaltation 
In the burden of their song? 

Had they less of consecration? 
Proved the path of Beauty long? 

Did they pause for pleasant resting? 

Swerve or falter in their questing? 
Have the ages done them wrong? 

Some there may have been who faltered 

By the bright ^Egean foam, 
Seeing life with vision altered 

As the soul forgot its home ; 
Some it may be in confusion, 
After youth's divine illusion, 

Turned to till the kindly loam. 

Some there are in all the ages 

Lonely vigil fail to keep ; 
Some allured by wisdom's pages 

Chart the sky and sound the deep ; 
Some give up the long foregoing — 
Human touches, reaping, sowing — 

Some with Sappho take the leap. 
56 



But the most wait unrepining, 
Hopeful when all hope is fled, 

For fulfilment of the shining 
Dawn that lingers far ahead, 

And, by paths of no returning 

Where the hearth-fires are not burning, 
March companioned by the dead. 

Through neglect or loud derision, 
Mocked at by the worldly-wise, 

Bearing burdens of misprision, 
Seeking truth and finding lies, 

Follow they the glow or glimmer 

Of the vision growing dimmer 
As the death-mist fills their eyes. 

Never can you be requited, 

Unknown Brothers, staunch and brave; 
You the bitter gods have slighted, 

Only half their gift they gave, 
Gave the patience of endeavor, 
Kept fruition back forever, 

Felled the cypress by your grave. 

57 



You are passed ; but unknown brothers, 
Finding faith of small avail, 

Follow now as followed others, 
And I pause to bid them hail. 

Brothers are they in believing, 

Some it may be are achieving, 

But they triumph though they fail. 



58 



Fulfilment 

TLTAPPY; yea happy forever and aye! 

Scarlet bursts through the eastern gray 
And the night is past ; 
For a woman's lips and a woman's hair, 
And the soul of her womanhood, wonderful, 
fair, 
Are mine at last. 

Dawn was near but no whisper told 
Why the stars went out and the world grew 
cold 

As the void above ; 
When suddenly out of the darkness sprang 
My passionate rose, and the whole world sang 

Of love, of love. 

59 



Now happy, yea happy forever I stand, 
The rose of passion within my hand ; 

And the day may close 
With the dust of worlds on the midnight 

strown 
For I hold forever, forever my own 

The passionate rose. 



60 



Okada Mitsu 

(To E. A. R.) 

TLJE cooks, he waits, he presses trousers 

well, 
He cleans the windows and he serves the tea ; 
And what behind his mask the man may be 
Remains with things that are inscrutable. 
I know he answers when I ring the bell 
And once a week he has an evening free : 
So much is clear; but what he thinks of me 
No prince of physiognomists could tell. 

61 



He looks beyond me when he serves the soup, 

And has a kind of humor in his eye. 

At times I almost dread Okada Mitsu; 

And once, when talking to a friendly group 

Of Hiroshige and of Hokusai, 

I wondered if the creature knew jiu-jitsu. 



62 



Cui Bono? 

XX^HAT is the worth of singing? 
To what shall I liken song? 
A bird through the sunset winging; 
And the night is dark and long. 

Agleam are the golden pinions, 
Glimpsed ere the sunset fade, 

Then lost in the dark dominions 
Of the slowly folding shade 

What is the worth of singing? 

Can I lighten the wide world-wrong 
With a leaf on the night wind winging, 

Or the sunset gleam of song? 



63 



The Only Way 

What is to be the salvation of our Government 
and of our laws and how is it to be effected? 
Look to one thing only; and this, virtue. 
Wisdom and justice and courage and temper- 
ance and holiness — all these qualities are parts 
of virtue. — Plato. 



65 



The Only Way 

I 

T LOOKED in vision down the centuries 

And saw how Athens stood a sunlit while, 

A sovereign city free from greed and guile, 

The half -embodied dream of Pericles. 

Then saw I one of smooth words, swift to please, 

At laggard virtue mock with shrug and smile ; 

With Cleon's creed rang court and peristyle, 

Then sank the sun in far Sicilian seas. 

67 



From brows ignoble fell the violet crown. 
Again the warning sounds ; the hosts engage : 
In Cleon's face we fling our battle gage, 
We win, as foes of Cleon, loud renown; 
But while we think to build the coming age, 
The laurel on our brows is turning brown. 



68 



II 

\X/^E top the poisonous blooms that choke 

the State, 
At flower and fruit our flashing strokes are 

made, 
The whetted scythe on stalk and stem is 

laid, 
But deeper must we strike to extirpate 
The rooted evil that within our gate 
Will sprout again and flourish, branch and 

blade ; 

For only from within can ill be stayed 

While Adam's seed is unregenerate. 

69 



With zeal redoubled let our strength be 

strained 
To cut the rooted causes where they hold, 
Nor spend our sinews digging fungus mold 
With all the breeding marshes left undrained. 
Be this our aim ; and let our youth be trained 
To honor virtue more than place and gold. 



70 



Ill 

A HUNDRED cities sapped by slow decay, 

A hundred codes and systems proven 

vain 

Lie hearsed in sand upon the heaving plain, 

Memorial ruins mounded, still and gray; 

And we who plod the barren waste to-day 

Another code evolving, think to gain 

Surcease of man's inheritance of pain 

And mold a State immune from evil's sway. 

71 



Not laws; but virtue in the soul we need, 
The old Socratic justice in the heart, 
The golden rule become the people's creed 
When years of training have performed their 

part; 
For thus alone in home and church and mart 
Can evil perish and the race be freed. 



72 



Dirge 



T TNDER the laurel sleeping 

White is her woodland pall, 
Dead in the laurel's keeping 

She whom the thrushes call. 
Winds of the south are weeping; 

Softly the blossoms fall. 

Idly the laurel bloweth, 

Idly the thrushes long, 
She whom the woodland knoweth, 

(Death, did she do thee wrong?) 
Brief in the laurel gloweth, 

Fades in the bloom of song. 



73 



Felicitas 

From the Italian of Mario Rapisardi 

T-TIGH on a granite headland, 

Where endless surges beat, 
The white, impassible goddess 
Sits throned on a gleaming seat. 

Over the ocean hanging 
The sky is a vault of lead ; 

Like lava boil the waters 

And far their roarings spread. 

The awful night and solemn 

By no new star is rent ; 
In darkness forever and ever 

The voices of life lament. 
74 



The ocean cries in resurging 
To the cliff that above it rears : 

"I nourish myself forever 

With human blood and tears. " 

And the wind round the goddess whirling 
Breaks in with its ancient cry : 

'I am the wail of the people, 
Of the ages I am the sigh. " 

And all that is breathing and loving, 

From the sky, and the sea, and the 
ground 

With the voice of lament is crying, 
Lost in the night profound : 

'Wilt thou look from thy mount, O Goddess, 

On the wrecked forevermore? 

Shall no one, no one forever, 

Be able to touch thy shore ?" 
75 



If thou art a vain illusion, 
A shape of a dream's impress, 

Why more than all do I crave thee? 
Why more than truth dost thou bless? 

O thou who above me art gleaming, 
O sphinx of no answering breath, 

O white, impassible Goddess, 
Art thou, O, art thou death? 



76 



Sicilian Song 

T> OAR of the prisoned thunder, 

Ringed by an iron range ; 
Flash of the levin wonder 

Bright on the upland grange; 
Over the earth and under 

Worketh the will of Change. 

Terror of gods infernal 
Spouting the nether fire ; 

Terror of gods supernal 
Smiting the Earth's desire; 

Terror and storm eternal 
Conquer the cup and lyre. 



77 



A Threnody 

In Memory of the Destruction of Messina 
by Earthquake 



79 



A Threnody 



CICILIAN Muse! thou who sittest 

dumb 
Amid the sodden fields and ways forlorn, 
Where once the herdsmen singing, watched 

their kine 
Breast-deep in fragrance, odorous eve and 

morn; 
Stranger to thee, yet led by love I come, 
A suppliant sable-stoled, to mix with thine 
My tears, and at thy shrine 
Kindle a funeral torch for Sicily: 
Give not the suppliant's prayer the meed of 

blame ! 
Scorn not the stranger's proffered oil and 

wine! 

6 81 



thou from whom the heavenly madness 

came, 
When Orpheus hymning struck his golden 

lute, 
And stirred old memories in Persephone, 
While all the lonely shades in hell stood mute 
To watch the still-beloved Eurydice 
Borne lightly upward on the silver surge 
To Enna's flowery verge ; 
Spirit august! Child of Mnemosyne! 
With reverence and true humility 

1 break before thy feet my careless flute, 
And wait upon my lips thy touch of flame: 
Begin, Sicilian Muse! Begin the dirge! 

O race unmindful of the Destinies! 
The dread Eumenides 

Or Moerae old, sent from earth's inmost core 
A tremor, warning blindly ye who, blind, 
See not the sleepless doom that evermore 

Has watched your tragic shore 

82 



Since lost sea-rovers shaded first their eyes 
To spy the riches of your waving store, 
And grated up your sands with doubtful keel. 
The startled jungle growled above its young; 
The Arctic foxes snuffed the scentless wind; 
But ye who knew yourselves a fated race, 
That gods have loved and gods to hate 

exposed, 
Though black the death-clouds over ^Etna 

hung, 
Forgot the anguish in Pompeii's face, 
Beneath her half drawn winding-sheet dis- 
closed ; 
Forgot white Lisbon's doom, nor called to 

mind — 
In pleasant Zancle taking noonday ease — 
How, from its ashes by the western seas 
A stricken Phoenix rises, stone and steel. 

Fresh as her Poro flowers at early dawn, 

When over Hybla's hills the yellow bees 

83 



From aromatic blossoms shake the dew; 
Fair as the maiden ere by dark Fate drawn, 
She saw the wide earth yawn 
Before the thunderous horses, and the strong 
Arm of Aides crushed her gathered flowers; 
So fresh, so fair, amid her storied seas, 
She who remains through changes aeon-long 
A greater Helen wooed with sword and song, 
Of mightier victors bride and battle prize, 
Lay lapped in peace, when swift from Hades 

driven, 
Upward the death-king came; the earth was 

riven, 
And through the darkness rang her children's 

cries. 

Now Scylla unto fierce Charybdis calls, 

While on the water spreads a crimson stain; 

Now Galatea sobs in Ocean's halls, 

And vengeful Polyphemus laughs again. 

The Nereids now in oozy caverns hide, 

84 



Where sea-kings of the old ^Eolian shore 
Watch sunken argosies forevermore, 
While dimly from the far, ensanguined tide 
Patient Odysseus furrowed once of yore, 
A glint of daylight through the darkness 

falls 
On swaying helmets, tumbled bronze and 

gold. 
There hide they ; but the sea-kings keep their 

state, 
Telling of ancient dooms and deaths of old, 
Nor know they how beside the darkened 

strait 
And up the slopes of olive, vine and grain, 
The dryads wail a land left desolate. 

Wail thou, great Muse, the dear Sicilian 

land! 

Now greater grief is thine than when of old 

Young Adon in the Cyprian's arms lay cold, 

And Daphnis' years were told. 

85 



Take thou the lyre from Time's enfeebled 

hand; 
Hushed is the music of Empedocles, 
Of splendid Pindar, pure Simonides, 
Bion and Moschus and Theocritus, 
And those who unto us 
Nameless, yet live as human memories. 
Hushed is the last of all that laurelled band, 
Hushed, or on Charon's strand 
Urging in vain petition dolorous, 
To pass where Pan, his boyish pipings done, 
Stands wistful, while the nymphs, by fear 

made bold, 
Cling with their long lithe arms about his knees. 
Wail thou, great Muse, or loose from Acheron 
Some worthy bearer of the singing bough 
Whose madness whirls me now 
On melting wings too near the southern sun. 

Yet why, for aught on earth, should grief 
be loud, 

86 



Since all that is, is born to pass away? 
Hero and maiden to the urn are vowed, 
And beauty saves not when the debt falls due ; 
Apollo with the darker gods has died, 
And Gasa at the last shall be as they. 
O Helen of the soul ! O golden isle ! 
By beauty doomed, by beauty sanctified, 
Thou too canst not abide, 
But like all else shalt last a little while — 
A little longer than the falling spray — 
Then pass as planet dust or gaseous cloud, 
To build new cosmos, gnawed by new decay. 

Earth's senseless atoms ever clasp and 

whirl, 

Unclasp again to form in mazes new; 

And ever on the white cliff stands some girl 

With dead eyes gazing on the sailless blue. 

Earth's roses die, but still the rose lives on, 

The song survives the swift Leucadian leap — 

A dream of immortality is ours. 

87 



Where golden Daphnis in the morning shone, 

Fresh sprung from Helicon, 

New shepherds singing lead their careless 

sheep 
Above the graves of Athens, Carthage, Rome, 
Vandals and Moslems, and strange Northern 

Powers 
That filled their destined hours, 
And fed in turn the rich Sicilian loam, 
Building, like coral insects from the deep, 
Enchanted islands that till earth is gone, 
Swept back to chaos in the atom swirl, 
Shall be the seeker's light, the spirit's 

home. 

■ 

Though ^Etna crumble and the dark 
seas rise 
Sowing the uplands with their sterile brine, 
Still shall the soul descry with wistful eyes 
Sicilian headlands bright with flower and 

fruit; 

88 



Still shall she hear, though all earth's lips 

be mute, 
Sicilian music in the morning skies. 
Yea, deep within the heart of man it lies, 
This visioned island bright with old romance, 
A race inheritance 

Of rest and joy and faith in things divine, 
That shall endure awhile through change and 

chance, 
And have the meaning of a childhood 

shrine, 
Remembered when the faith of childhood 

dies. 

Now fails the song, and down the lonely 

ways 

The last low echoes die upon the breeze. 

I lay my lyre upon the moveless knees 

Of her who by the hollow roadway stays, 

In anguish waiting for her children slain 

That shall not come again 

89 



With springtime, leading the new lambs to 

graze. 
They come no more; but while o'er hill and 

plain 
The twilight darkens, and the evening rose 
Aloft on iEtna glows, 
Silent she sits amid the sodden leas, 
With eyes that level on the ocean haze 
Their unobserving stare, as seaward gaze 
The eyes of stolid caryatides. 



90 



